The technical university of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University (APJAKTU), formerly Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU), will be setting up 150 Incubators to extend technical support and funding to innovative startups by its engineering students.

The university would be setting up 150 incubators to mentor students in the new academic session.

The incubator programme will also be offered to affiliated colleges in the university. APJAKTU is touted as one of the largest technical universities in India with about 800 colleges affiliated to and having around 150,000 students enrolled in its various programmes .

Moreover, under the incubation programme stipend will also be provided to the startups and entrepreneurs selected for the upcoming incubators.

The application window for students to send their ideas to APJAKTU will open January onwards.

The university has also constituted a committee of 25 experts from different fields to shortlist the best entries which will then be incubated by AKTU.

According to Vinay Kumar Pathak, the vice-chancellor of APJAKTU, “The incubators will be set up on the lines of Small Industries Development Bank of India’s Innovation and Incubation Centre at IIT-Kanpur. The young innovators will not only get infrastructural support but also a stipend. The support extended to students would include facilities for developing different parts of a machine in workshops, testing of prototypes and assembling parts with available equipment.

To recall, in February this year, the state government had massively hiked the fund allocation for startups in the state from Rs 5 crore to Rs 250 crore, which the state govt will use the startup fund to set up incubators in Lucknow.

Established in 2000, by the government of Uttar Pradesh as Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU), the university was officially renamed as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University in the remembrance of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a former President of India.

UP has introduced its Startup Policy in 2016 to encourage establishment of small business and industries by providing sops like interest subsidy and exemption in stamp and electricity duty.

The proposed incubator, which will be up and running in the next 3 years, will be setup in about 40 acres of land near Lucknow Airport, which is on outskirts of the city. The upcoming incubator will comprise data centre, business processes outsourcing (BPO), development centre, training centres etc. [Read More Here].